'Powerless' Recap: Can Someone Get Vanessa Hudgens Some Friends?

Where are the Wildcats when you need them?

Welcome back to Charm City! Since you last visited Powerless, things haven’t changed much — and that’s a good thing. (No one’s been incinerated by a villain or something like that, which we’re chalking up to a victory.)

Our chipper heroine Emily (that’s Vanessa Hudgens, in case you forgot) is busy getting settled in the city and making her office at Wayne Security a little homier. She’s so chipper and optimistic that not even a slight disaster (AKA flying fireballs destroying her morning snack) can ruin her day. This actually makes her a perfect fit for her new gig, considering 75% of the employees don’t have the most positive attitude in the world. However, Emily’s infectious enthusiasm is helping the team get their new products green-lighted and approved by the, uh, powers that be, so things are getting better at the insurance company.

Emily’s lonely, though. She moved to Charm City without any friends, and she’s looking to her team to help her feel more at home in their superhero-laden metropolis. (Not to be confused with the actual Metropolis, which exists somewhere in this DC Comics universe, of course.) She can’t help but feel a little left out considering her team — Teddy, Ron, and Wendy — are super tight. They rebuff her offers of pizza and hangouts, and it bums her out. You can’t blame the girl; it’s hard to balance being the boss — which occasionally means being the workplace version of a bad guy — and keeping your employees on your side. Emily’s so desperate for friends that she rides the elevator up and down just to meet new people.

But she won’t be able to focus on this for long as her team has been tasked with designing an umbrella meant to help innocent Charm Citizens protect their necks (and their heads) in the midst of a superhero brawl. It’s not going well, and neither is anything in the executive realm of Wayne Security.

Van’s mad that he’s not included in the “Wayne Dream Team” group photo, though when he shows it to his assistant Jackie, she has a pretty good point about its *actual * shortcomings.

Van: Jackie, what’s wrong with this picture?

Jackie: There are no women or minorities?

Meet Jackie, our new hero.

Of course, because Van is complacent in his own mediocrity, this issue preoccupies him through the entire episode while learning and growing is going on at his office. (We have a feeling this is going to be a theme with Van, much like *The Office *’s Michael Scott.) He eventually Photoshops himself, finger guns and all, into the image just to soothe his wounded ego, so yeah, exactly like Michael Scott.

Emily realizes that she can’t motivate her team to get actual work done without asserting herself somewhat, and she reaches out to Samuel Greene, the head of HR at Wayne Security. They decide block the Internet, which freaks out Emily’s team (same, TBH) and she pretends to be the “good guy,” blaming the block on HR, so they’ll accept her as one of their own and not their superior. All she wants is to be part of their superhero fantasy league! Emily just wants some friends!

Of course, since this is a sitcom, Emily eventually gets caught in her lie after Ron, Teddy, and Wendy manage to Photoshop Van and his dorky finger guns into a bunch of photos. Samuel from HR exposes the scheme, and Emily’s team is not happy about her betrayal of their trust. “You said you had our backs, but then you went behind our backs,” Ron says to her.

Emily has a right to be conflicted. She wants to do her job well and motivate her employees to create new products — AKA, do their jobs and keep them all on staff at Wayne Security. But she feels bad for lying to them, which is why she takes one for the team and watches the daylong anti-bullying video required by HR so they don’t have to do it. A good boss makes sacrifices, after all.

Emily’s employees realize that she was only trying to help and save her from the HR office. They forgive her, impress Van with their successful umbrella invention, and invite Emily to join their fantasy league. Emily and her team still aren’t besties, but they’re warming up to each other and starting to feel like a united front.

Things are looking up in Charm City, so we’ll see you here next week! Watch out for flying fireballs, OK?